In some surgical procedures, surgeons employ open surgery or minimally invasive techniques to access a target site within the patient's body. Open surgery techniques typically require large incisions and high amounts of tissue displacement to gain access to the surgical target site. Due to the large incisions and high amounts of tissue displacement, patients who undergo open surgery usually require a relatively long recovery time. Minimally invasive techniques, in contrast, involve significantly smaller incisions and require less tissue displacement. As a consequence, patients who undergo minimally invasive procedure have significantly shorter recovery time than patients who undergo open surgery.
In view of the advantages of minimally invasive procedures over open surgery, surgical access systems have been developed to access a surgical target site using a minimally invasive approach. For example, surgical dilators, retractors, and systems typically displace or retract tissue to establish an operative corridor to a surgical target site. Surgeons have employed known surgical access retractors and systems in different kinds of surgeries. In spinal surgeries, for example, spinal access systems can be used to retract tissue in order to perform posterior lumbar interbody fusion (PLIF), anterior lumber interbody fusion (ALIF), or any other suitable spinal approach and surgery. A surgical target site can also be accessed via antero-lateral access, postero-lateral access, and direct-lateral access.